Running the High Line

My running coach gives me an awful lot of six-milers, and I usually head for the same running route, so some burnout is natural. I mix up my routes on the weekends, but during the week, I just want to get my run over and done with and not spend time traveling to get somewhere to run. Still, this route burnout has made it a little hard for me to get out the door in the morning.

Yesterday, I slept in and ended up getting a bad headache in the afternoon so I pushed my run off until today. When I woke up, I bummed around for almost an hour (where does this time go?) before finally pushing myself out the door to run six miles when I realized that the longer I pushed it off, the harder it would be.

I ran down my West Side Highway path. The same route may get boring, but the gorgeous river views never do.

Looking up 10th Ave from 17th Street.

Instead of running back up the path to the street closest to my apartment and heading east, I decided to hop on the High Line and run that to change things up a bit. For non-New Yorkers: the High Line is the site of a train track that lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air to separate it from street traffic. Trains stopped running in 1980, and the park was opened in 2009.

Looking down 17th Street.

Looking up the High Line at Midtown West.

I was never a morning person, but I’m starting to really love running in the morning and seeing New York just waking up. I mean, the High Line will never be this empty during the day.

My Garmin died a mile in, so I relied on my RunKeeper app for the other 5 miles. Cutting in east early shortened things, and by the time I was in front of Duane Reade to grab a coconut water, I was only at 5.05. “I could just cut my run short and round up,” I thought. “Nobody would ever know.” But I would know. And I was still feeling good and wanted to push things, so I ran in some circles to get the remaining .95 miles in, and then I felt even better having actually accomplished what I was supposed to.

Having my favorite breakfast (sunflower butter, banana and English muffin) didn’t hurt either.

Do you mix up your running route or just keep running the same routes? Tell me about your favorite running route.